The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1887-11-02

lunu- his proposition. moreover, was tnat e
these schools should be Department. of q
the College; and he justified his scheme By {
their usefulness. nay their indispensability '
to the College itself. But as / said, be did |
not at all make the adoption of this scheme, I
the determiner of his convictions, legal and {
moral, of the propriety of the recognition
OF this debt The two things had no rela-
ton, and could not be correlated. In his
message of '48, which induced the act of
that year, he had abandoned the whole idea,
or, ~ least, says nothing of it,
So, then, the effort of the Senator to re-
move from the name and memory of Gov.
Brown THE reproach OF having given sane
ton to this unjust and illegal demand"
falls to the ground;- and the beautiful |
tribute he has penned (which is no less Just
than 1t Is beautifully to the memory of that
great statesman, is captive to the grasping
College, amongst its other spoils. The fact
must be conceded that whatever weight in
this matter is.due to his name, rests with
the University.
M'RAE AND THOMPSON, AND THE LEGIsLA-
TURE OF 1856.
The Senator is very severe in his ridi- |
Guile of Gov. McRae and Mr.. Thomp- |
son. Mr.. Thompson's transformation" |
and his decisions and his miscon |
ceptlon of the scope of the celebra |
ted 18th section of the act of 1843, and his |
omission to look at things absolutely I'M
der his nose;r and his and the Governors |
amplitude of fallacy," their "fullness and
| completeness, their absolutely appalling
perfection of error and absurdity'' in their
| message and memoris,-all are discussed
at great length, in the ARREST, and most
humorous, and confident style. Then we
are told how they both deludedly conceived
| that ALL the Seminary Fund had been re-
ceived into the TREASURY" and how they
had impaired to the 18th section of the act
/ of 1S43 an "ante fetal and post-mortem
vigor and malignity;' and how the Legis-
| lature of 1856 (analyzed, counted, and eulo-
| gized to the extent of full half-column)
had "sat down on" those deluded gentle
men. Says the Senator: "In all that illus
trious body NOT ONE was found to do this
message and report reverence, or show them
| any respect whatever. There are always, I
believe, in every Legislature some men of
| singular intellectual formation, and some
| weak men; but no excentricity of morals,
no weakness of mind, no perversity of tenn
per existed in that body that could be enlis-
ted in their behalf. They died without the
hand even of the executioner. They were
simply allowed mot to be- They met
condemnation more emphatic than the most
terrible Observation-Disclosures silence and
oblivion. The Legislature
was magnanimous and bountiful, but they
utterly but silently,-may not say scorn-
fully ?-repudiated the pretensions of Gov.
McRae and Mr.. Thompson, TO MAKE THE
UNIVERSITY CREDITOR etc. 1t seems the
Senator has made up his mind to supply
the want of the terrible invective;' but we
will pretermit that, and ascertain what foun-
dation there is in fact for this telling rhet-
oric. How does the Senator KNOW that this
scornful reputation, whose most terrible
characteristic was its majestic and awful
silence, ever took place at all, and especial
ly thet it took place IN THAT WAY? For OBJ
serve, it is the dreadful manner of the doing
of the thing that is the point so graphically
insisted on. Is it fancy sketch, after all ?
| or is it not?
On page 373 of Senate Journal of 1856,
we find this entry: ''Mr. Cobb, by leave, in
troduced bill entitled an act to reduce
into one the several acts relating to the
seminary fund, which was read. The rules
being suspended, the bill was read the Sec
ond time by its title. On motion of Mr..
Cobb, the bill was ordered to lie over and
4 $50 copies to be printed for the use of the
Legislature"
On page 399, we read: ''Mr. Cobb called
up the bill entitled an act to reduce into
one the several acts relating to the Semi
nary Fund, which on his motion, was made
the special order of the day for Saturday
next, 9th inst, at II o'clock"
On page Alp we read: son motion of Mr..
Cobb, the order of the day was taken up
and considered. The bill entitled AN act
to reduce into one the several acts relating
to the Seminary Fund was read. On mo-
ton of Mr.. Webb, further consideration of
the bill was postponed, and it was referred
to committee of the whole Senate, and
made the order of the day for Thursday
next, at IL o'clock"
On page 433, we read: 'The second order
of the day. the Senate Bill entitled AN act
to reduce into one the several acts relating
> to the Seminary Fund was taken up and
) read. Mr.. Elicit moved to amend the bill
by striking out all after the enacting clause
and inserting, that to enable the Trustees
of the State University to provide suitable
buildings to accommodate the increasing
) number of students in said Institution, to
supply deficiencies in the Library and APP
: paratus, and to meet other pressing wants
of the Institution, the sum of twenty thous-
and dollars be and the same is hereby APP
propriated, to be paid out of the State
Treasury, annually, for the period of five
, years, to be paid on the order of the Presi-
dent of said Trustees
''The amendment was adopted.
son motion of Mr.. Elicit, the preamble
J to the bill was stricken out, the bill consid
cred as engrossed and read the third time
and passed.
'The title was amended so as to read ian
act for the relief of the State University.
and so ordered to stand"
The bill was then sent to the House, ano
passed in that body.
How d0aS the Senator KNOW that the bill
entitled san act to reduce into one the sew
eral acts in relation to the Seminary Fund,
and which was the germ of the act ''for The
relief of the State University" (the latter
act being so different from the former that
only the enacting clause remained unalter'
ed)-was not in fact an act directly respon
sive to the McRae message? Unless 1T car
be shown not to have been such a bill, the
, Senator's fine passages about the tremen-
dous condemnation of an Arctic silence goes
for naught. The whole affair resolves it
! self into common legislative contest over
the success or failure of proposed meas
ure, with nothing particularly impressive
or conclusive about it.
} 1t is to be observed that the gentleman
who introduced and advocated the bill in
its original form, and while it manifestly
proposed to do something about the Semi
nary Fund-was the very Mr.. Cobb whom
the Senator eulogizes as one whose bril-
liant talents and great culture had made
him distinguished, not only in politics but
in literature"
| In investigating this matter, called on
the Assistant Secretary of State for the or
iginal Cobb bill; but he informed me that
it was useless to look for it amongst the
archives of the Senate; that anti-bellum
papers of that character were not pre-
| 7 4hav1 10 IN nd vhr,
introduced the substitute for it, and asked
him if that was not a measure looking to
the recognition of debt on the basis of
the McRae message, and he replied in the
affirmative, stating that the measure was
supported by Senators Davis, Cobb, Pegues
and probably Starke (another of the eulo-
gized). So that after all, there were some
found ''to do this message reverence
So far as the Senator's attack on Gov.
McRae and Mr.. Thompson is concerned, it
will be an all-suficient answer to say that,
as I shall show elsewhere, the act of 1880
| land that is the real point in this easel DID
| NOT PROCEED ON THEIR CALCULATION AS A
BASIS. Whether they were right or whether
| they were wrong Is, therefore, an immaterial
question; since their computation was not
acted on. l shall show, however, in another
connection that it is not, after all, such
foregone conclusion that those gentlemen
were wrong about their per cent. interest;
and any impartial reading of Mr.. Thomp-
sons Memorial will show that he was argu-
| ing the case in its various aspects; first, on
| the idea that the State had lost the money
by an improvident system of credit; and
secondly, on the theory that she had re-
| ceived the proceeds of the sale in her Treas
ury; for which latter proposition he con-
ceived that the message of Gov. McNutt, of